2008 Woodie Awards
U. Senate is scarcely critical of 10-year plan
Ken Pitts
Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: News
Members of the University Senate had little to say yesterday after viewing the first draft of the university's new strategic plan, a 10-year road map showing how administrators envision the school's future.
Only eight people stepped up to comment on the document after Provost Nariman Farvardin presented a breakdown of the plan's four main points: to modify CORE, improve the graduate student experience, strengthen ties with the university's surrounding community and bolster global ties.
Bill Montgomery, the chair of the senate and vice chair of the committee that created the strategic plan, interpreted the lack of opposition as a sign of unity about the plan.
"It's astoundingly affirmative," Montgomery said. "I expected more negative things, and the things that were brought up, I think, are very logical things that are in [the plan] but are not stressed appropriately."
Faculty members' concerns focused mainly on detailed points within the plan, rather than its overarching concepts. They questioned how academic departments would work more efficiently with fewer resources and how the university would keep up with changing technology.
One professor also criticized the plan's call for an improved graduate student experience but lacked similar stipulations for faculty.
But Farvardin welcomed the criticism with enthusiasm, despite a persistent hacking cough.
"We have a system of shared governance at this university," Farvardinresponded. "It is not that one person will sit somewhere and make all these decisions on behalf of the university."
History professor Gay Gullickson echoed the most pervasive criticism of the plan when she questioned one of the plan's most drastic proposals: the reshaping of undergraduate CORE education into a widely defined, globalized general education program geared toward future ways of thought.
"What seems to me to be our bedrock mission, our core function as a university, tends to disappear in this document," she said. "It's here, but there are so many things here that it seems to me that our mission to advance knowledge ... and to teach this knowledge to students, is not here. And if we did everything except that, we wouldn't be a university."
"I whole-heartedly agree with you," Farvardin replied. "If I were to read this document as an outsider, I would have said the same thing."
Farvardin attributed the plan's somewhat confusing density to the fact that it is still a work in progress, and he said future drafts would be less redundant, clearer and more detailed, especially if more members of the community give their feedback.
"We are proposing a revolutionary plan that, in many ways, will take this university in a new direction," Farvardin said. "A university with fifty thousand people in it is like a battleship: It's not very easy to navigate."
Montgomery said the plan's second draft, due out at the end of this month, will likely reflect the comments made during the session, as well as those being gathered on the steering committee's website.
pittsdbk@gmail.com
Only eight people stepped up to comment on the document after Provost Nariman Farvardin presented a breakdown of the plan's four main points: to modify CORE, improve the graduate student experience, strengthen ties with the university's surrounding community and bolster global ties.
Bill Montgomery, the chair of the senate and vice chair of the committee that created the strategic plan, interpreted the lack of opposition as a sign of unity about the plan.
"It's astoundingly affirmative," Montgomery said. "I expected more negative things, and the things that were brought up, I think, are very logical things that are in [the plan] but are not stressed appropriately."
Faculty members' concerns focused mainly on detailed points within the plan, rather than its overarching concepts. They questioned how academic departments would work more efficiently with fewer resources and how the university would keep up with changing technology.
One professor also criticized the plan's call for an improved graduate student experience but lacked similar stipulations for faculty.
But Farvardin welcomed the criticism with enthusiasm, despite a persistent hacking cough.
"We have a system of shared governance at this university," Farvardinresponded. "It is not that one person will sit somewhere and make all these decisions on behalf of the university."
History professor Gay Gullickson echoed the most pervasive criticism of the plan when she questioned one of the plan's most drastic proposals: the reshaping of undergraduate CORE education into a widely defined, globalized general education program geared toward future ways of thought.
"What seems to me to be our bedrock mission, our core function as a university, tends to disappear in this document," she said. "It's here, but there are so many things here that it seems to me that our mission to advance knowledge ... and to teach this knowledge to students, is not here. And if we did everything except that, we wouldn't be a university."
"I whole-heartedly agree with you," Farvardin replied. "If I were to read this document as an outsider, I would have said the same thing."
Farvardin attributed the plan's somewhat confusing density to the fact that it is still a work in progress, and he said future drafts would be less redundant, clearer and more detailed, especially if more members of the community give their feedback.
"We are proposing a revolutionary plan that, in many ways, will take this university in a new direction," Farvardin said. "A university with fifty thousand people in it is like a battleship: It's not very easy to navigate."
Montgomery said the plan's second draft, due out at the end of this month, will likely reflect the comments made during the session, as well as those being gathered on the steering committee's website.
pittsdbk@gmail.com
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